Already Gone
by Aneta
Summary: For you are so full of simple things. Of climbing trees and of holding hands, of dusty secrets and New York scars. And there is something to be said for internal strength and pent-up anger. But maybe there is more to be said for moving on and letting go.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I own none of the characters, they all belongs to CBS.

The first time she realized it, it was in the quiet lull between assignments.

They were at the pier, leaning over the railing and looking out across the waters at all the people they were working to protect. Her slender fingers drummed against the molding wood in a steady rhythm meant to distract them both from the 'what ifs?' of the past few days. He had opened his mouth to say something, and she'd turned her head to look at him.

Nothing.

But the fading sunlight hit his cheek and the lost look behind his eyes lead her to believe that maybe he knew how lonely they all were. Turning back around to the ocean, if she'd dared herself to look once again, she would have seen that it was gone. It was only a small flicker of hope that jumped inside her chest, and it was only a momentary slip of his well-crafted mask.

It was enough.

He was shot without warning, although as the bullets pierced through his chest, he wondered if maybe he'd always known that he would die like this. In front of people he cared about. '_Always hurting someone G._' it really was amazing how such coherent thoughts could enter the mind of a dying man.

Sam was somewhere above him, shouting words that mixed together before reaching his ears and made him want to get away from all the noise that roared to life at the sound of gunshots. Later, when thinking back on those days spent hovering between life and whatever death might bring from him, he would lie. Say it was just like waking up and finding yourself in the hospital, with nothing but the memory of pain that surfaced every now and again. For all he knew, he'd just been sleeping.

He never spoke of the horrible dreams that kept him from opening his eyes sooner. Flashes of people he could not save, and others who he knew he'd never be able to apologize to. He was a good man, with a heavy, aching heart. She came into his mind every now and again, and left just as quickly. Giving him only a small smile that left him was more questions than answers, and the gentle touch of someone who was already so far away.

She liked first dates, breakfast burritos, and going undercover. He was terrified of commitment, needles, and of not knowing what was about to happen. They spent most of their time making jokes and pretending not to understand the look in the other's eyes.

He asked her once what she was thinking.

He always wondered why she lied.

_It should have been me._

It has been said so many times before. But it had never meant as much to him as it did in that moment. In the quiet of the car, listening to her murmur about the men who were pointing guns and shouting orders. He doesn't remember getting out of the vehicle, but suddenly he's running across the pavement.

There are gunshots and Sam is suddenly calling about backup and where's the goddamn ambulance, and there is so much blood that he doesn't think his hands will ever be clean again. Her eyes are half closed and she is mumbling about something he can't understand, so he brings her close to him and gets out of there because the smell of copper is one that makes him feel sick. And then there are hospitals and nurses in white and the endless, endless sounds of machines.

He wakes up each night in the silence, the receding seconds of a nightmare that will never end in time to save her. And there is an aching, desperate feeling that makes him wonder if what he does now will ever, ever be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for reviewing everyone.**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

Timing is everything.

She moved into his world so seamlessly that he has always believed she'd been planning it for years before actually getting the call.

Somewhere between all the effortless lies of being someone he wasn't, there was a young woman with curls that filled his view and a temper that brought him back down to the reality he'd been avoiding. Looked so completely confident that she had him all figured out and filed away; finding himself uncomfortable in his own weathered skin.

"_Well it's true, you do have a better face for radio."_

She would smirk, and it was always a game.

Falling into the steps of pushing boundaries and dancing around unwritten truths. She showed him how to surf one summer afternoon. And in those few moments of sun and the way her laugh left him short of breath, the team that was waiting patiently on the beach might as well have been another world away.

He showed her how to watch her back, and protected her behind a wall he did not remember constructing. Planning his movements around her smiles and his words were based on what she might say in return. These things that develop so cautiously that you are not sure they're even happening at all.

Sometimes, there is so much to be uncertain about.

_Kensi_

I do not believe in many things that spend their hours tapping patiently on my window. I have long outgrown the belief that I can make the difference between love and loss when I am still so afraid of my shadow that creeps up behind me on these cool afternoons. If I was braver, smarter, faster, wiser, more prepared, _better_, maybe you would still be making me feel like I was someone who could smile and deserve it. Losing yourself is like waking up and realizing your nightmare does not end in the morning; pulling back and realizing how hollow you are.

No one prepares you for the emotional pain.

You spend most of your nights curled up inside the only building that makes you feel safe; but your dreams are always full of things that make you shiver in your sleep. I always hope the coffee I place next to you is enough to bring you back from a world that cannot seem to let you leave it behind.

And this is not easy. I am not calm or rational or willing to let go of something I might not get back. You are distant and uncertain. Bruising fingers and clashes of opinions and we both wake up alone because we're too stubborn to admit that we might actually need someone who cares enough to fight back. Often times, we meet in the middle, burning words meant to hurt, because neither one of us knows how to heal.

You are convinced I do not understand.

That I have never felt the loss that comes from knowing you are the only family you have left in this pulsing world. That I am distracted enough to not know that you cover up your insecurities by hiding behind the telephone. There are so many truths. All bundled up inside of me. And there comes a time when you have to be able to turn around and be okay with all the things you've said and all the people you've hurt and all the moments you've lost. Maybe I need you more than I should. Maybe I've got it all wrong.

I would like to mean something to you.

If you'd let me.

And I am completely and totally sure of very few things. But I do know that my heart flutters and my words catch and I am so completely unaware of whom I should be when you are looking down at me. Blood is rushing through your veins and your breath hits my face; I feel your bones beneath my aching fingers and I cannot help but miss you. We are always under the impression that we are so far away from a place that feels like home.

I do not believe in many things that spend their hours tapping patiently on my window.

I do not believe in many things at all.

But I do believe in the security that I find in you, and that sometimes, things are okay.

Sometimes I can sleep through the night and sometimes you remember that I do not expect you to be strong for me all the time. There is a certain sense of completeness that one gets from the knowledge that there is a tomorrow out there waiting. It does not matter who was right. It does not matter if you made your bed that morning. It does not matter whether or not you understand what I am trying to say.

And when you are done sidestepping everything that I am too tired to avoid anymore:

I will find you.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks for the reviews everyone.**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

Her breath was hot on his face as she cornered him next to the stairs, a light dancing in her eyes that he found himself unable to place.

"I'll have you know I do not take that long to get ready."

So that's what this was about. He smirked and leaned forward.

"You're just angry because I almost died today, and we all know how lonely you'd be without me around."

She snorted and pulled back, turning on her heels towards the bullpen. He followed her lazily, still trying to figure out who exactly had the upper hand in this argument.

"I'm perfectly used to you and Sam putting your lives in unnecessary danger, Callen."

Bending over, she swung her backpack over her shoulder, turning away from him without showing her face. Something in her voice made him reach out, and he found himself grabbing onto her wrist and tugging her towards him. Taking the bag from her, he set it back down on her desk.

"This isn't about how what I said earlier is it?"

There was a tone of lightness in his voice that he hoped would encourage her to open up to him. But her attention stayed focused on something just passed his face, and he knew enough about body language to guess that she did not want to be here anymore. Sighing, he pulled gently on the wrist that he was almost surprised to find he was still holding, and wrapped his arms around her delicate frame.

She put her forehead on his shoulder after a moment of hesitation.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

His words were soft and low, he knew better than anyone how hard it could be to open up to people you care about. And she could deny it all she wanted (and she probably would), but she had come to him tonight because she needed someone to do just this.

Slowly, she shook her head.

"Not yet."

They usually told themselves that everything was all right, and that these things that make them hurt just happen, while everyone else can only watch with heavy hearts. But just because you love someone doesn't make it okay, you know?

Callen grew up believing that there was no such thing as security.

Because when one goes to sleep at night knowing that they will be gone again tomorrow, and that their world is full of people who do not understand the frustration of being with families who do not care, there is never any promise that you will be okay.

Kensi grew up believing that she had something to prove.

Because when your father dies and your mother was never really in the picture, the relatives that pity you often underestimate how strong you really beneath all the hate and regret. She holds people at arm's length because then they cannot hurt her, and they will never get close enough to see her terrible fear of being alone.

And sometimes in the quiet of their own homes, stuck behind walls that reflect just how little they are willing to risk, they will wonder why. Why some people are never given the chances they deserve. Why there are so many things that could always, would always, go wrong.

When the cases ended with bodies and empty guns, she would wait for him. Sitting quietly at her desk while he typed up report after report on how everything might have been avoided, but wasn't. Sometimes she thought they spent most of their time convincing themselves that they were doing the right thing. Days that blur together and you find that there are very few people you can trust anymore. Everyone is sorry for something.

And when he is done, she drives them both to her small apartment that smells like spring and has a couch that he knows well. They set it up in silence and she lets him use her shower. It's an arrangement between people who know all too well there may not be a next time, and yet do not have the right words at the right moments.

But when he turns around, and people are falling and weapons are drawn and those nights are on the horizon but still so very, very far away, she has a way of always being right where he needs her to be. Because there was once a morning when he was still caught in the hazy in-between of reality and sleep and he asked her not to leave.

So she smiled and held his hand for a small, fleeting tick of the clock and stayed.

They are not young enough to hold onto the hope that they will all end up happy.

And they are not old enough to understand that sometimes, there is nothing you can do.

Everyone wants so many different things from so many different people that it is no wonder we often end up disappointed. Often times, we are lost in the translation of what we meant to say and what we actually did. Often times, we are no better than we will allow ourselves to be.

So she keeps her things in an old cardboard box in hopes that one day it will not hurt as much to let them go. And he keeps everything locked away in his mind because there, he cannot lose it.

And they both feel these things spinning so very far out of control.


	4. Chapter 4

**So some of you may have noticed that this isn't much of a story-story, with a concrete plotline. I'm hoping that you're all okay with it being more of a character-development thing, although feel free to tell me if you'd rather it have a plot and all. Or if you have any other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them as well.**

**Thanks (as always) to everyone who's reviewed.**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

"_Right now I'm worried about all of us" his eyes will not meet hers, and she is fifteen and shaking as the navy base around her suddenly becomes suffocating with the mention of death._

Sitting at her kitchen table that is surrounded by potted plants and old family photos, the bills in front of her seem to lack the importance they had once held. When she was younger and still getting on her own two feet. Before realizing that there were more important things than money and what neighborhood you lived in.

_When the gun in her hand felt heavy and strange. When the bullets that flew past her head woke her up in the middle of the night with a throat that was raw and burning._

Sam, who has known her the longest, notices when her eyes gaze off and her muscles relax. And he keeps it to himself that she is so much more protective of herself than he remembers her being before. Because there was a time when she was not like him and it hurts to know that maybe it was inevitable after all.

_Sometimes they know she is thinking of fire, of guns, of dust and blood that stains your fingernails. And sometimes they worry that maybe she is not there at all and that's when they make a joke or touch her arm in desperate attempts to bring her back._

Nate, who knows that there are some things about a person you can not tell by looking at how they are sitting or by how they say what they do, has been moving around her quietly for months now. Almost worried that when she does tell him what he is afraid to hear, he will not understand. And when she pats his knee and walks away he can almost taste the sorrow that leaks through her hands onto his skin.

_Because when the words are tumbling from her lips and the golden harmonica glints in the sun that steams through the window, he knows that she is many worlds away in a place that was once home. So he sits and laughs it off with her but she still leaves when it's over because she can't look him in the eyes and agree with what he is saying._

And he wonders if that is as real as it gets.

Somewhere between that kitchen table and midnight she picked up the phone and called him in a distant, weak voice she realized much later was her own. But she could not hear him and could not feel him because there is only so much of someone that can filter through a phone line. And she does not remember when exactly he opened her front door but he's suddenly there, bending down in front of her and holding her face in his hands.

He asked her once if she wanted to talk about it.

"_Do you ever have nightmares, G?"_

It is a strange question that reminds him of Russian soil and social workers, of shootouts and the days when she is not wearing the bulletproof vest. So he nods because he simply cannot say anything else.

And he knows what it feels to be empty, and so he tries to listen to her words rather than the steady beating of her heart.

"It _hurts."_

Callen is not sure he could have said it any better than that.

He once sat in a car with a former suspect and talked about the American dream. About baseball and kids and houses with white picket fences.

And when he had dropped the man off at a place he does not remember now, he returned to the office and found her waiting there. They sat mostly in silence, as they often do when they are alone. Because he regrets what he has done and she regrets what she has not, and that is not a line they will ever, ever be able to re-draw.

He would ask her one-day if she wanted to talk, but in all reality, she asked him first. In the darkness of the empty office building she listened and he did not say much. His words spoke of greater, angry things. They spoke of unfairness and the empty hearts that make jobs like theirs necessary.

_Is it possible for this to become normal?_

That might be what scared him the most, he said. That he would wake up one morning and the murders and the liars and the endless bullets that stained the floors red would stop making his stomach clench and his mind race. She had waited silently as he whispered the words that he did not remember ever deciding to say.

She did not tell him it was irrational, and she did not say it would be okay in the end because he was a good person. Those were all things he knew long before that conversation. Because it was not called fear because it made sense. It was called fear because it would keep you up at night and leave you checking your shoulders when you walked down the street, for the rest of your life.

He tells her that he is not looking for anything so that he will not be disappointed when he does not find it.

He tells her that he is tired of being stuck with more questions than answers.

And she waits up even as his words die in his throat and his eyes flutter shut. She knows better than nearly anyone that she cannot change people, but she watches over him through the hours as if maybe that will help keep his nightmares away.

No one asked about the bags under her eyes the next morning.

It does not take Hetty's insight for either of them to know they have a great deal of distance between them.

And although they are tiptoeing around pretenses and victims and who they know they should be, there is something out of all the nothings they create. So they are building bridges and burning bridges. And they are there, and then they are not.

No one ever told them that meeting in the middle was so hard to do.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer in Chapter One

_Callen_

You were in Russia for longer than you'd care to admit.

Because you remember that there was a warehouse on the edge of a radioactive landscape that had long since been a ghost town, and there were men and there was the doubt that you would ever get back home _now_. And your partner that was not mentioned by Eric (because he was already long dead) was standing next to you and then he was not. You do not remember who ended up shooting the bad guys, or which side could really be given the title of good if you looked hard enough, you just remember the familiar mantra of _please don't die please don't die oh, please don't die._You did not pick up the phone and call for help because it was already much too late for that.

And he had no famous last words or apologies. Your hands over his heart could not stop the gasping for air or the dimming light of his eyes. You had never lost a partner before.

There was no funeral because they usually do not send men with families on suicide missions.

So they buried him in a foreign country.

And then they flew away.

You met Sam on an undercover assignment that you did not know you were actually apart of.

But he had an easy smile and did not make you talk about things like Russia and family. So you went along with his crazy ideas and found a normal you had never really left. And with Sam came a psychologist and a computer wizard and junior agents and an old friend named Hetty. So he does not make you talk about things like Russia, and he gives you a family.

And you suppose that there are many ways to save a life.

They should all be nicer to Nate.

You know this well enough, because the man is trying his best, but you do not like being read. You do not like the vulnerability that comes with being exposed. And his words often bring up the very things you ache to forget so you shut them out and pretend that they are not there at all.

So the man hides behind his explanations and the illusion that he will wait for them to come to him. But always worrying that they never will; no one likes to feel useless or invisible when it comes down to the matter of things.

And he learns that sometimes, there will be things that he will never understand.

Some people will always be better off alone.

He supposes that he tolerates Eric.

It is not that he dislikes the man, but that he finds himself unable to relate to his world of military codes and flip-flops. He who has never felt the cold barrel of a gun or the stinging blade of a knife and tends to explain things in ways that do not make sense. Maybe he envies the world their friend lives in.

Where there are beach days and there are still college friends that have safe jobs and happy children. When there is a comfort in the fact that he will wake up each morning and that his computers will not kill him and he will never leave the office because there are too many things about fieldwork he does not know.

But you do respect him on levels that (maybe) even you yourself do not realize.

Because while he will never know the feeling of being so very close to death, he will always, always know how it feels to spend a lifetime watching. A lifetime of always, always being too far away to keep someone alive.

You wonder which is worse.

Hetty knows things.

She knows things about people and places and cases and feelings and things about other things. And you learned long ago not to ask too many questions because she was one of the few people that would always know exactly what answer you do not want to hear.

Hetty knows things.

And you think that that is enough.

And then there is Kensi.

A girl who goes and goes and forgets exactly how she got there, who you met in a flurry of suspicious looks and lighthearted conversations. And you think that she scares you the most because she knows better than you how easy it is to lose your heart. Or maybe she scares you the most because you know that she has been on the dirty floor of an empty building crying _please don't die please don't die oh, pleasedon'tdie_before too.

She tells you that she woke up in a lot of different places before finding her home in this city. She tells you that she felt so small in her own skin. That she woke up in all those different rooms and realized that she had always felt small in her own skin.

But she smiled after the silence and said that you'd fit in just fine, squeezed your hand and walked away.

You learn very quickly that there are many different kinds of love.

You were in Russia for longer than you'd care to admit.

And there was a warehouse and there was a partner and then there was not. And there is always the frozen soil and the gray and dusty plane that does not make you feel safe. There is a sort-of kind-of family made up of people who say too many things and are always at the wrong places at the wrong times and need each other more than they will ever consciously admit to anyone else. There are insecurities and computers and unwanted answers and so much silence.

And you learn lessons of life saving and being alone and which is worse and how much is enough and that there are many different ways for your heart to love someone.

So you decide that even if this is not technically home and that this is not the meaning of life and that this is not where people envision themselves being from the very start of everything that matters, it is more than good enough for you.


	6. Chapter 6

**All right, I'm not too pleased with this chapter, but I've been struggling with it for about two days now, and I'm tired of dealing with it. So feel free to let me know if there are any changes I need to make, or anything else you happen to notice that doesn't make sense. (And I know that this is a very far-fetched idea of where Kensi comes from, but it's just my attempt to explain her character a little better.)**

**Thank you all for reviewing!**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

_Revenge: 1. An opportunity to retaliate or gain satisfaction. 2. The act of revenging; retaliation for injuries or wrongs; vengeance._

It eats you from the inside out.

Because you are fifteen and your father is dead and you spend the next few years caught with this terrible desire to know the truth. But there is no justice in death and there is even less in the things you wish would happen to the men who took your gentle father so far out of arm's reach. And over the years you wonder if he was leaving long before he actually left.

So you graduate early in an almost easy attempt to escape the ghosts that lurk in your doorway and the constant reminders that you once had so many choices. You blink, and you are in the Middle East.

Because there was a time when you did not work in Los Angeles.

At nineteen, almost twenty, this is where you learn of panic and this is where you lose yourself in the faces of other agents that go into buildings first and never come out. At night there are undercover operations and in the dusty afternoons there are assassinations and explosions that leave you dizzy and so very aware of how much a person can live wanting to forget.

"_Kensi, you're with me."_

_The agent is twenty-six and stone faced, a man with not many years on him, but has the stature of someone who has seen too much to be anything but weary. She might be twenty by now (she does not know the month anymore), and can feel her heart in her throat. They step cautiously into the damp hallway of the decaying office building, listening for footsteps that are not theirs and the heavy breathing of others through their earpieces. Water is dripping off the black, shadowed ceiling._

_There is a faint click somewhere up ahead, and suddenly the agent is shouting and there is something pushing her backwards and a force she cannot see knocks out her feet from underneath her. Someone is screaming and it might be her but she does not think so because her mouth is full of ashes and the yellow flames that cover her vision make her long for the darkness that was just there not seconds ago._

_She was very lucky. The doctors told her this in sympathetic voices because they know very well that living does not always mean you have luck. Someone from the (former) team came and told her the force of the bomb had thrown her against one of the walls, and a falling piece of debris had protected her from the worst of the attack. The man with her was not so fortunate. And she does not ask for anything more than that because his burned face is waiting for her that night and she can still smell the smoke curling up from the searing heat that took so many lives._

_Between the restlessness of sleep and the dull ache of conscious thought, she finds that it does not matter what side you are on. You suffer through the losses all the same._

And so you leave the suffocating warmth of the desert behind.

Get caught up in a different kind of war and when you watch the news you are honestly surprised that you cannot feel the shaking of the ground beneath your unsteady feet when the fire erupts in a land so very far away. You work in New York City and let the other agents make fun of your young age and smile softly when they talk about all the people that came and went leading up to now.

Eventually, it grows on you.

The way they find all these missing pieces and watch as they fall together to give them an answer. How so many things go wrong, but never wrong enough to stop them from trying. You become used to the biting cold that comes with being this far north, and begin feel the dirt that you did not think would ever leave your skin start to crumble away.

It is here that you grow accustomed to face-to-face shootings and physical fights. And it is strange because for so long, the enemy was not a single someone, was not within your line of sight, because they were in the second story of empty apartment complexes with shots that killed and they were men in Marine uniforms that never came back.

And as you are forgetting, you receive a call from a man in an expensive suit with a voice that does not leave room for questions. He works for NCIS, and you find yourself in a building that proves looks can be deceiving. There is a woman named Hetty who needs information about terrorist groups in the countries you have been trying so hard to avoid, and there is a man named Sam Hanna who shows you what to say and who to say it to. And then there is a new case but you do not go back to the people who you will always believe brought you back to life, but write letters and take pictures and forget to go to the post office every once in awhile.

Somewhere along the twisted, uncertain line, you forget about revenge.

You forget about what might be owed to you and you forget about people with empty souls and bruising hands. The will to hold a grudge slowly fades from your chest because eventually, you realize that some people will always have more than their fair share of heartache.

And you are suddenly not the youngest agent, and it becomes oh so easy to pretend that maybe you have always been in this city with these people and you have never known how deeply one can hurt.

Out of some kind of courtesy, the others do not ask, and you are not sure even Hetty knows enough to tell.

There are many different realities that wind their way through your thoughts and group together into sentences you will not say to these people. And sometimes you dream of agents and curling smoke that drifts behind your eyelids inside cold and empty hospitals. And sometimes it is raining and you're on the outskirts of a city that does not know you and does not care to know you, surrounded by the movements of others who work to forget. Someone once told you that pretending would not keep you safe.

You whispered back that you did not know how to live any other way.


	7. Chapter 7

**Thanks for reviewing everyone, and to everyone who's added it to their favorites/story alerts! Tell me what you think of Sam's POV? I thought it might add another dynamic to their relationship, but feel free to disagree.**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

_Sam_

Honestly, you do not remember when you first noticed.

When you started turning around and finding them side-by-side, when there ceased to be a difference between the sides of the desk they shared. It seemed almost natural, as if they'd looked up one day and simply acknowledged the fact that the lines between them had somehow, somewhere, become blurry enough to be crossed.

You wait up at night and think it over. And with every even breath that passes through your lips, you wonder if it's possible to mend someone. To reach down and patch them back up so unless you were to lean close and squint, you would never know that they'd been broken at all. You suppose that if such a thing exists, there are no two people more deserving of it than them.

So you are edgy with the woman from the Secret Service, not liking her busy words and not following her one-track agenda, and you leave her sitting in the car still fuming while gunshots ring through a metal building. And you wish that Callen's past would stay in the past, because you see the self-hate that has been growing for so many years threatening to spill over and you feel the distance between you growing with every fake passport that comes to sit on his desk. Kensi, so uncharacteristically patient, never bats an eyelash at these women and these rusting metal boxes.

She seems to understand, better than you, that there are some things that will never completely disappear.

The two of them fall into a pattern of silent understandings.

He asked you once what her story was. In the darkness of a stakeout you were beginning to think would never end. And you answered that there were a lot of different stories; that they usually mixed together and tended to fall apart into stray facts and possible outcomes. You only know that she moves carefully around corners, and tends to say things about her life that sound a lot more revealing than they actually are.

She never asks if he has a story to tell. And you think it is more because she is keeping her distance than because she already knows.

And there is always something akin to helplessness that rests in the pit of your stomach. For these two angry, proud people who have seen too much and loved too much and woken up on so many silent mornings with a bitter taste on their tongue. Eyes that are always open and hands that are always closed and sometimes you think they both wonder how it is that their fragile hearts could possibly still be beating.

You drop her off in front of a bank almost hesitantly. Because even though you know the plan and you can see the vest underneath her jacket, you have had nightmares like this that leave you breathless and drained of any will to drift away again. And you know that he, too, will wake up tonight with those three shots that left her shirt bloody echoing through his veins. Because you are your own worst enemy and his are shooters in black vans that drive away too quickly, but hers are stuck in memories that neither one of you have the courage to ask about. And maybe you worry that you'll always be a little too scared to keep her alive.

So you pretend that they aren't avoiding the truth and you pretend that you aren't accepting their lies in a desperate, longing attempt to keep some of them to yourself. And she embraces her skill sets and asks if he worries, and he wins her coin toss and watches her smile at a young girl named Ellie.

Sometimes you wonder if they know that they spend so much time picking up the pieces to a puzzle that they have not even begun to try and solve.

_Callen_

She sits on the bottom step and you cannot meet her eyes as you pace.

Because tonight is all about women who ache and men who fear, and the stinging urge to wrap her up and keep her away from these understatements and the knowledge that you are still so completely blind to the world. Head in her hands; you'd like to believe that the message in her mouth is one of promises and not another empty thing that you often find passing between you.

The last time you were here it was to comfort. And even now, so many hours later, you are still not sure that you understand what either of you is running from anymore. But she is thinking of the cold tile on the floor of an ill-fated bank and you are distracting yourself with questions of asphalt and possessions that exist only in memory.

You remember that so many things exist only in memory.

She sighs, and stands.

You pause, and there is a moment that has so many possibilities that passes between your steady forms. She steps into your path of movement and you think that maybe she knows that there are times and places for many things and that wasted chances do not mean you don't want to try at all.

You once asked Sam what her story was, and found that he did not have an answer. But her smooth hands and gentle words have you convinced that no matter how burning the start and not matter how raw the middle, you will see to it that the ending is something worth holding out for. She smiles as if she knows that you have promised her this, and you imagine that maybe she does, for she has always read you well. So she leans up slowly and presses her lips against your cheek in a simple attempt to calm your racing mind. Then she pulls back, and is gone.

And there are so many in-between moments and so many near misses and so very many things that you do not want to see that you sometimes forget why you started doing this in the first place. And then there is a laugh or a simple trick of the setting sun and you remember the boy that started it all because he is peering out at you through the mirror.

You find yourself unable to say if this is who you thought you'd be by now.


	8. Chapter 8

**So this is going to be a longer Author's Note than what I usually have, but bear with me! First off, thanks so much to everyone that has been supporting this story. Secondly, several of you have commented on how quickly I update, so it pains me to say that this week is going to be a little slower than these past few days. You see, we missed a few school days last week due to snow, so now we're all playing the catch-up game. So I'll have a considerable less amount of time to write this coming week. Hopefully I'll still get two or three chapters out before the weekend, and then definitely one or two next week after the new episode, but it won't be every day like it has been. If it's been longer than expected, try checking my profile; I should have something posted there that may explain it further. Sorry guys!**

**Oh, and before I forget, if you have time, check out a different one-shot I wrote called 'A Silent Conviction.' It deals more with Dom, and his disappearance from Kensi's POV. Tell me what you think?**

**Zurrikan: I took your advice on writing from Kensi's perspective, so hopefully it lives up to your expectations!**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

_Kensi_

You have come to believe that the meaning of life is tucked away in dusty photographs and well-meant words of comfort. That if you reach out, and are patient, even the most unwilling participants will take your hands and let you lead. You discover on a foggy Tuesday morning that you were wrong when you said that there was always a moment to say goodbye.

When he first arrived, the air around you still smelled of the east coast and blazing desert sand. You tasted blood in your mouth, and you thought that it matched the loneliness in his steady blue eyes. So you opened your heart to the stranger who would like to pretend he did not have one. And you could have smiled when everything hurt just a little less.

"_You fell in love."_

He watches you, because your voice is one of knowing. And the woman with the young daughter smiles back because she understands that there are many different ways to wait for someone to come home.

You have lied to your family. You have lied to your friends. But you will not lie to yourself. So you admit that you both have founded a relationship based on the pretense that there will be second chances for every time you hang back and do not speak. And you know all too well how much you have to lose, and how terribly easy it is to turn your back and find that it all disappears when you are not looking. Because the worst things happen when you are sitting at home and the telephone rings. When everyone is so very sorry, but there was nothing, is nothing, they could do. You are certain that there was a time before this, but it is lost somewhere in the black ashes of a building that will never stop burning.

And there comes another night when he follows you home and stays in your living room. But you toss and turn and eventually slip out your own door and find him still sitting where you left him so many hours ago. So you sit silently next to him and find how easy it is to hold him close. And you did not cry when your father died and you did not cry when you were sure the whole world must be on fire, but you want to cry now. Because of how little he says and of how much he means will never quite add up, and you know that it is all too easy to fall off the mark when there is nothing left to hold on for.

_The first time you realized it, it was in the quiet lull between assignments._

_You were at the pier, leaning over the railing and looking out across the waters at all the people you were working to protect. Your slender fingers drummed against the molding wood in a steady rhythm meant to distract you both from the 'what ifs?' of the past few days. He had opened his mouth to say something, and you'd turned your head to look at him._

_Nothing._

And those nothings that turn into something's that become such an irreplaceable part of who you are that you are unsure of exactly how you got on without them. He takes your hand in his when he thinks no one is looking, and you stand closer than normal when that distracting rhythm becomes too much for you to ignore alone. You suppose that if everything comes full circle in the end, you'll be back at that pier one day. So you wonder what it means to be confident in the ending to a story you're not the one writing. And you wonder if there is anything you really can do, at this point, with these people.

Maybe it all changed too quickly for you to pinpoint the exact second you found the roles reversed. Or maybe it never crossed your gentle mind because it was a slow and lacking process, one that dragged across the months in a steady measure of movement. And then everything changes, and he is looking up at you and you would have jumped that glass railing to get that damned white powder off his fingers. But Sam was not there, and then he was, and so you stayed. Leaning back down and pulling the stranger up off the floor, swearing that you would have killed him yourself if things had ended differently. You have never been more relieved.

And you watch these men that are your family, and you want nothing more than to keep them with you, because you are so endlessly scared of what happens when you are not there to insure that they are okay. But Sam pulls you close sometimes and smiles with confidence you envy, and Nate is silent in his understandings of how much you worry for everyone but yourself. Eric laughs at things that aren't funny and you find it hard to believe anything could ever take him away. Dom leaves suddenly and you admit in the middle of the night that you long for so many people to come back into arm's reach. And Callen steps up next to you and you find that he never really leaves. Because maybe you've just always been searching in the wrong places, or maybe good things really do happen to those who wait, but you realize there are some things that don't need explanations, and that there are some people who will always find their own way to where they need to be.

So you spend a lot of time missing, and a lot of time loving, and a lot of time feeling around for something solid enough to stand on. And they all have you convinced that there are so many right answers to choose from.

You hold him close on a night when he is not able to make it work by himself. And you whisper old stories from a fading childhood that does not always feel like yours, and you feel him smile sometimes. He falls asleep with deep and even breaths, and you do not move.

You do not think it is possible to love someone more than that.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thank you everyone for your support! Here's a little long-awaited progression in the almost tedious relationship that is Kensi/Callen. Enjoy!**

**(If you're looking for something a little lighter than this, try 'the things we forget.' It's on my profile.)**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

_Kensi_

He peers over at you as if there is something standing between your leaning forms.

And you think he must have been sixteen and lovely and so very unafraid to die once upon a different time. But there is something about the old records that end up stacked in your corner like discarded memories, and so you keep your mouth shut for fear of reading too far into what has not happened.

Slowly, almost uncertainly, he backs you into a wooden wall that you do not remember being there before. And he leans so very close to your flickering eyes, as if waiting for you to say something that would make this easier to ignore. Because you are young enough and old enough, and empty enough and real enough. And it is because of all these fractured things that you say nothing at all.

There is a box, somewhere behind you in a room full of discarded papers and unneeded files. It is something you have often forgotten to hide for fear of forgetting it all over again, and is full of plastic bracelets and various toys and other little, empty things. Because when they told you to pack up anything you wanted to take, and the sky opened up above you, you stood there and found that everything that mattered could not be sealed away with ribbons and layers of masking tape. So you find in the loneliness that follows that those replaceable items are suddenly not.

_"Are you worried about him?" About him, about her. But he purses his lips and looks away. And she knows that they are always talking about two very different things._

Hetty tells you one drifting afternoon that there are many different ways to live a life.

But you learn on your own that very few people know how to love. Because they think it is a big thing, filled with butterflies and first dates. But she grows a little and then love is when his hand is resting on the small of her back before the first shots are fired in some lasting attempt to convince himself that they are both still alive. In unexpected telephone calls when he just needs to know that she is there, somewhere, and in the way his handwriting always tilts upwards when he's in a hurry. And one must come to terms with the idea that there is no such thing as black and white. It all comes down to perspective.

He wants to know if you love him. Because he is so close now, and some things to not need to be said to be understood. But you do not believe that love is always a definite thing. Like calendars hanging on a wall or the chess board you never use. It's bigger and broader and so much more lingering than that.

So he raises his hand softly, brushing the stray curls that always make him smile off your forehead. And you swear that your heart is beating out confessions loud enough for him to hear. But you know that through all the people he's been, he cannot change who he is underneath the false credit cards and meaningless bank statements. Some things mean more than justified killings and good-hearted sacrifices. You wonder exactly how long you've been standing like this.

His breath is calm and easy; like he's known for a very long time he would end up here with you.

And there is no hesitation the next time he moves closer, and his lips are soft and his fingers are cold against your cheeks. Maybe there was a conversation leading up to this, or maybe you can only put things off for so long before they push through your excuses and happen on their own. But he leans back eventually and looks down again as if to say something more. But you smile and shake your head. Because, if you sit down and think back, it is all the conversations they did not have, all the times they were not ready, every ticking second that let them wait.

So you stay in a not-quite silence for what might have been hours.

For you are so full of simple things. Of climbing trees and of holding hands, of dusty secrets and New York scars. And there is something to be said for internal strength and pent-up anger. But there is more to be said for letting go and moving on. So very few people are brave enough to believe that maybe they do not know what they are looking for.

_"What are you going to do when I leave?"_

His words are soft against the gentle curve of your neck.

And you suppose that they are a promise of sorts. He will leave. And your heart thuds painfully but you do not wince at the future that may still be so very far away. There are so many answers to these questions that keep you wide-awake until the sun is up again. So you turn your head until he is forced to look at you, and it is your turn to narrow your eyes slightly, as if looking for secrets in the curious wrinkles on his patient face. You almost smile.

"_Come after you."_

And you said once that there were so many right answers. But you can't help but think that sometimes, like these times, there is only one answer that will allow itself to roll off your waiting tongue. That if the words are not arranged in this order and said in the soft voice that always means you are not lying, it is not an answer at all.

You are both fumbling through these missteps and locked hallways that usually lead you nowhere. And you often have this sick feeling when the floorboards are not quite where they should be, and there is this moment where you honestly believe you will fall.

And as these things take you places you did not mean to go, and show you people that do not always help, there is this constant pattern of readjusting just how you thought everything would work out.

So there is distance and there is uncertainty, and there are moments of calm breath and whispered words. And nothing worth having ever, ever happens all at once.


	10. Chapter 10

**Definitely a little bit different than most of these chapters, but hopefully you'll like it, even if it's not a stand-alone. Sorry for the slow updates, I'm hoping to have another one up by Monday! And thanks to everyone who has reviewed :).**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

There is a moment of understandable silence, and she is lost.

_"We're dealing with a man named Alec Sage. Former Agent, but we thought we lost him in a firefight about five years ago. Turns out he's just been working for the other side."_

_Callen nods and Sam folds his arms and Kensi wonders why the air in her mouth just will not reach her lungs._

_"Agent Blye," the Director's narrowed eyes turn on her, "you take the lead on this case. Seeing as you have the most-"_

_He pauses._

_"-personal connection with Sage."_

And then he cuts the line and there is so much she does not want to say to the eyes that have not left hers since her name was called. So she listens to the scuffing of feet and does not move.

"_Kensi, you're with me."The agent is twenty-six and stone faced, a man with not many years on him, but has the stature of someone who has seen too much to be anything but weary. She might be twenty by now (she does not know the month anymore), and can feel her heart in her throat. They step cautiously into the damp hallway of the decaying office building, listening for footsteps that are not theirs and the heavy breathing of others through their earpieces. Water is dripping off the black, shadowed ceiling._

She first met him between the damp brown walls of the small desert airport that was the gateway to her new life. He was skeptical. Asked her what could have possibly brought her out to where she'd meet an almost certain death. She had shrugged; and he had almost laughed.

So they became sort-of friends in the black smoke and over the screams of those who could do nothing but run away. And he was fierce and he was sure and he was something that felt real when everything tilted and refused to make sense. So she trusted him and listened to him, and maybe she might have loved him at one point.

But she still does not know why she remembers the echoing sound of water over the timid pounding of his heart.

_There is a faint click somewhere up ahead, and suddenly the agent is shouting and there is something pushing her backwards and a force she cannot see knocks out her feet from underneath her. Someone is screaming and it might be her but she does not think so because her mouth is full of ashes and the yellow flames that cover her vision make her long for the darkness that was just there not seconds ago._

_She was very lucky. The doctors told her this in sympathetic voices because they know very well that living does not always mean you have luck. Someone from the (former) team came and told her the force of the bomb had thrown her against one of the walls, and a falling piece of debris had protected her from the worst of the attack. The man with her was not so fortunate. And she does not ask for anything more than that because his burned face is waiting for her that night and she can still smell the smoke curling up from the searing heat that took so many lives._

She did not ask questions.

Not then, in the sterile emptiness that was the hospital. Not later, in the belly of a cargo plane, surrounded by the sleeping bodies of others who had nothing left to go home for. No, she did not ask questions.

But she had so many answers.

Because she remembered the shouting and she remembered the heat and the steady impact of a crumbling cement wall, and she remembers the cool touch of a familiar hand, and whispered words that were meant to ease her dazed mind. And she knows she was not dreaming, and she knew that he would never be found in the smoldering ashes even if they had looked. So she closes her eyes and imagines him dead.

Because then, she will not go looking for him.

But now, as she faces the worry of people who care too much, she wishes she had the right answers. Not the half-hearted murmurings of a man who should have died instantly, and instead lives on as someone she refuses to believe she once knew.

She realizes that she has never known betrayal like this.

"Eric, what do we know?" Her words are soft and strained. And he gives her a last known location and does not understand the knot in his stomach. She looks at them, finally, and the words are careful.

"I'll be back."

And she turns on her heel and slips through their angry protests. Callen tries to follow, and Sam grabs his arm. Nate taps his fingers nervously on the glass table in front of him, and Hetty watches from behind them all.

"You're just going to let her go?" Callen's voice is angry, and he pulls against his partner's restraints. Sam does not meet his eyes.

Because he remembers the first time he met her, and he remembers the case on foreign drug cartels that left a bad taste in her mouth. And he knows that this could be some kind of closure. So he trusts her enough to give her space, but turns to Eric and tells him to find out everything about this man, and asks Nate to read up on the former-agent.

He lets go of his struggling friend and watches him storm out of the darkened room.

He thinks that this has been a long time coming.

So Callen forgets about Russia, and Kensi forgets about desert sands. And both things come back to haunt them eventually.

She waits outside the motel the address led her too and does not move.

Because she knows that friendship does not mean anything after five years of bombings and five years of absence. And she knows that he saved her life once and will not do it again. She knows that he is here, waiting for her, for a reason.

And she has learned so many things since they crept into a trap he had helped set. That the end of suffering does not justify it ever happening at all. That you are more wrong than you are right. That you will always leave a little bit of yourself in your past.

So she unclips her seatbelt and turns off her phone.

And thinks that she never wanted anything to end like this.


	11. Chapter 11

**Thanks for reviewing guys!**

**Enjoy, I'll try to have the next chapter up soon.**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

Chaos resumes.

And there is shouting and cursing, plans of daring escape routes and rushed preparations.

Underneath it all, there is a running prayer that there is something (_anything_) they can do.

On the other side of town, Kensi turns a doorknob slowly and steps into a dark room to face a truth she has always known. The man is still and she would have sworn he was not breathing. But when she flicks on the lights and locks the door behind her, he offers her a small, foreboding smile and stands in greeting.

"_Kensi."_

Soft and simple words. Vaguely, she wonders if he knows she has come here to die. Vaguely, she wonders why he is here at all.

"_It's been awhile."_

And so it has. But they have known each other long enough, have been through these routines so many times, lost countless hours memorizing what to say next, and are all too aware of the seconds they are wasting.

So she pulls out her gun and relaxes at its weight between her fingers.

And then they wait.

Callen rejoins them in a flurry of tense orders and impatient sighs. Frustrated, he turns angrily.

"_Why _is he here?"

And for all their bravery and all their pretenses of understanding the situation before them, they can only bow their heads and work faster. Because he is the main character in a story that none of them have ever been told. And now it is ending in smoky motel rooms and rusting pistols.

Eric pulls up the case file sent from Washington. And Sam swears that he cannot breathe.

Because there are documents and records and bank statements. There is a birth certificate and a death certificate that is now a lie. And there are pictures. So many pictures of a young man caught up in a war he did not start and does not want. And there is a girl with him. With curly hair and soft brown eyes. Two easy smiles that shine down at them from the screen. And behind the figures there is a cloud of sand and a burning sun that shadows their faces. But she is a little less angry and a little less scared, and such a far cry from the agent that may or may not come back home again.

"They were partners for about a year and a half out in the Middle East, part of a unit in charge of locating terrorist warehouses and taking them down. It says in the report that he died instantly when one of the suspected meeting places was blown up, and that she barely survived the blast." Eric pauses in his reading, eyes scanning down the rest of the page. "Obviously he knew something the rest of them didn't."

"What about the rest of their team?" Sam asks quietly, because he has a feeling he already knows.

"All but three or four died in the explosion."

And Callen still cannot say why he is back again. Maybe it's all loose ends. Maybe she has always known something more than she wrote on those black lines all those years ago.

But he knows enough to know it's time to go. So he pulls the keys out of his pocket and leaves.

And is not surprised when Sam is right behind him.

"_Why?"_

The words burn her throat as they fall out of her open mouth. She watches him closely. There is no guarantee he'll answer, but she feels he owes her at least that much. A year and a half is a long time to lie to someone you care about. And five years is a long time to be dead. He shrugs slowly.

"There are a lot of different reasons Kenz. And none of them will make you feel any better."

She hates it how easily he has fallen back into the routine of friendship. As if nicknames will make shooting her any better. Any more acceptable.

"_Damn it_ Alec!" She moves closer.

It has been five long years since he left her drowning in ashes. Five years since she felt his cold hand on her clammy cheek. And she wonders then why she bothered at all.

"_Why now."_It does not feel like a question. But rather an acceptance that maybe ending up here, in this room, was never an option. That there is no answer. And looking into his cloudy green eyes, she believes that maybe he has always belonged to a world of hating and killing and living only to lose it all on purpose. So while she wakes up from nightmares, he is trapped in one.

And very suddenly, she finds that she does not want to die.

They are cutting corners and running red lights.

"_Sam drops her off in front of a bank almost hesitantly. Because even though he knows the plan and can see the vest underneath her jacket, he has had nightmares like this that leave him breathless and drained of any will to drift away again. And he knows that Callen will wake up tonight with those three shots that left her shirt bloody echoing through his veins. Because he is his own worst enemy and G's are shooters in black vans that drive away too quickly, but hers are stuck in memories that neither one of them have the courage to ask about. And maybe they worry that they'll always be a little too scared to keep her alive."_

So they keep silent. Each one so very afraid that maybe they are already too late.

That she was gone even as she left them this morning.

That she has always been in the process of leaving.

That they will open the door and there will be no vest and there will be no re-dos or silent reassurances.

Sam drives faster.

_At nineteen, almost twenty, this is where you learn of panic and this is where you lose yourself in the faces of other agents that go into buildings first and never come out. At night there are undercover operations and in the dusty afternoons there are assassinations and explosions that leave you dizzy and so very aware of how much a person can live wanting to forget._

It all happens so quickly after that.

You do not remember him raising his gun, but suddenly he is. And there are deafening shots that shake the walls around you, and he looks at you suddenly with an incredulous look in his eyes.

_And so you leave the suffocating warmth of the desert behind._

But even now, there is sand in your mouth. Dry and sickly sweet between your teeth. You wonder if it has always been there.

_Somewhere along the twisted, uncertain line, you forget about revenge._

Yes, you have forgotten about revenge. You wonder if it even matters what you have forgotten anyways, just that it ever existed at all. He is not quite standing anymore, and you begin to feel sick.

_And sometimes you dream of agents and curling smoke that drifts behind your eyelids inside cold and empty hospitals._

He is still looking at you, open-mouthed. And there is sticky crimson blood pooling around his knees. You don't remember shooting him, but realize you must have. Absently, you wonder if you are dying too. Many years ago, it would have been expected. Almost fitting.

But you place your hand over your torn shirt and wish that you had less to regret.

_Someone once told you that pretending would not keep you safe._

_You whispered back that you did not know how to live any other way._

And you do not remember ever being more honest than that.


	12. Chapter 12

**Sorry guys! These past two week have been hectic, and I've had almost no time to get this chapter written. Thanks for all your encouraging reviews! You guys are seriously the best. I promise to try and get the next part out in a more timely manner.**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

_Alec frowns, and leans forward to poke the dying embers in front of them back to life. Kensi watches through hooded eyes, her forehead resting carefully on his moving shoulder._

"_It's going to go out soon no matter what you do." He grins at her mumbled warning, amused by how tired his partner is, but drops the stick he was holding anyways._

_The camp around them is silent. The only light for miles is quickly disappearing at their feet. He does not mind the darkness, but likes to believe he could keep the flames alive if he wanted to. If he really wanted to. They watch the coals flicker out, and she moves slowly to her feet, stumbling on her way up. Laughing, he steadies her, easily ignoring her glare, if only because he cannot see her face._

_Feeling their way past the other tents, she slips into hers a few moments before he reaches his own. Reaching down, he slips off his shoes before sliding into his sleeping bag._

_He is running out of time._

_There is a plan in motion. One that involves betrayal, and one that will leave the earth trembling beneath the feet of families across that distant ocean. And it is not his plan, and it is not entirely his wish. But it was set in motion long before he donned this uniform, and he cannot help but see the benefit in leaving it all behind. In playing pretend. It's almost frightening how simple it will be for him to be a dead man. The folded picture in his jeans pocket makes his chest ache underneath his tattered shirt._

_But she arrived just a little too late to change his mind, and he knows just how good he is at letting people down. So he closes his own eyes and tries to think of carpeted living rooms and the bell of his best friend's bicycle as it whizzes past him. Of things in soft light with smooth expectations. He wonders if he will ever really pick a side._

_If it will always be too late for him to make the right choice._

_Kensi_

She is moving somewhere between sleep and awareness, caught in a strange world where everything comes out in whispers and the people around her spend most of their time spinning in circles as she tries to focus. But the only other person with her now would probably say she was the one spinning, if only because he's dead. The blood that has been slowly creeping towards her own crumbled frame, and the blood from her own battle wound have met somewhere in the middle, and she tries to concentrate on that rather than the frantic beating of her heart.

Maybe she shouldn't have locked the door.

But she has no doubt that if anyone is looking for her, they will find a way around the metal deadbolt. Her friends are nothing if not persistent.

_The way he clenched his fingers when he was about to tell a lie, of clay and of pomegranate seeds, of glass and bleeding things. And when he looked away, there were aching seconds where she could have sworn she saw him slipping back into the fires she was trying to rescue him from. Back into the flames that scorched her hands and left the skin brown and wrinkled in sharp scars that would not heal._

And now she's in a cheap motel room with two guns that kill all too easily and one that is still hot in her hand. She wonders if maybe all those years she spent convincing herself that he was really and truly gone are the reason she is here now. That, if by letting the past catch up with her, she had unknowingly left any possible chance for happiness back in the desert that is so cold in memory. Maybe she knows better than even Callen how easy it is to forget exactly what you're hiding from after awhile.

_"I'm sorry." He mumbles one night, half awake, as she takes her turn as lookout. She smiles softly in understanding._

_"It's alright, you're tired, go get some sleep." He shakes his head as forcefully as he can manage, and makes a half-hearted attempt to grab her hand as she moves past him._

"_Not 'bout _that _Kenz."_

_He sits up suddenly, as if frightened by what he has just said. There is a moment of silence that passes between them, as she watches him curiously, and he stares off into the darkness around him and takes shallow breaths. The conflict behind his eyes continues, but he stands quickly, and leaves her behind._

She knows what he means now.

And even after everything he's done, and even though she knows that whatever he came here for is far from over, she has the urge to reach out and bring him back. To tell him she will always see his face over breaking wooden bridges, and in the black and white movies that never leave her shelf. As if the young boy she left behind could ever replace the man in front of her. As if there is still anything left to say.

So she stares and the clock on the bedside table instead, watching as the green numbers continue to shift. Eventually, she blinks, and they all become the same.

The car jerks dangerously to a stop behind the familiar black one of their fellow agent. Callen is out of the car and running before Sam has a chance to cut the engine, and the faint trace of blood on the already-dirty window catches him off guard.

"Sam." His words sound choked and desperate to his own ears. Somewhere inside of him, he wants to call Eric and ask for camera footage, wants to ask Nate about their suspect's early life and anything that could have led to this, wants to call Kensi and pretend that she might not be dying on the floor, that she might not already be dead.

So Sam bends over and carefully picks the lock in front of him, before yanking open the heavy door with his weapon pointed and ready. Lights flicker on. And in the mess of red and the mass of curls that hide whether or not their friend is actually breathing, Callen remembers when he used to sit in the back of a yellow bus and press his cheek against the cool pane as the other children filed on. And how somewhere between then and now, life started so very unexpectedly. That he has more yesterdays than wrinkles under his eyes. How he will always feel safe in the questions he never asks.

_Because he remembers that there was a warehouse on the edge of a radioactive landscape that had long since been a ghost town, and there were men and there was the doubt that he would ever get back home _now_. And his partner that was not mentioned by Eric (because he was already long dead) was standing next to him and then he was not. He does not remember who ended up shooting the bad guys, or which side could really be given the title of good if one looked hard enough, he just remembers the familiar mantra of_please don't die please don't die oh, pleasedon'tdie_. He did not pick up the phone and call for help because it was already much too late for that._

And now he is standing in the doorway on the edge of a town filled with smog and loss and thousands of hurting people. And maybe there is no home to get back to, if he is already there. His partner is on the floor, but is checking for pulses with shaking fingers, rather than taking his last breaths. But as if it never really left, _please don't die, please don't die, oh, pleasedon'tdie,_returns andleaves him breathless. So this time, he picks up the phone and calls for an ambulance that promises to be there quickly, and falls heavily to his knees next to Kensi. Holding her hand tightly, as the rest of the world ceased to be anything more than a home he did not belong to.


	13. Chapter 13

**Special thanks to:**BlackHowling77, JTF2 and evershort, for being with this story from the very beginning (which makes it sound like this is the last chapter; it's not!). And thanks to everyone else as well, I appreciate everything you guys send me, it's very humbling and amazing to read. You're all very kind. :)

Disclaimer in Chapter One

_Kensi_

For your fifteenth birthday, a few months after your father's death, your aunt gives you an old camera covered in dark blue wrapping paper to make it all feel new. And you know it's only because she pities you and it was probably sitting on a shelf in her attic for years leading up to this, but you smile and thank her. Because even though it has no film (and plenty of dust), you are convinced that this, if nothing else, is something that you can fix.

And you smile at her surprise when she visits again and the walls of your new room are decorated with over three-dozen black-and-white and faded color shots of things you find beautiful but cannot explain in words.

So when you shipped out for the first time, you pulled out that cardboard box, spreading the contents around on your white bedspread. You placed the pictures in envelopes with all the letters your father used to send, you tuck them away between all the costumes and the medals from an almost forgotten career.

And you pack the camera in a different box and send it back to the woman who you think might need it the most. As if there is some kind of heroism in returning something in better condition than it was given to you. You wonder now if you only did it because you were leaving behind these things in the expectation that you will not return for them. But you left the post office and drove to the airport without a second thought. And then she doesn't write and you'd never call.

You think that it is enough of a closure for you.

_But you learn on your own that very few people know how to love. Because they think it is a big thing, filled with butterflies and first dates. But you grow a little and then love is when his hand is resting on the small of your back before the first shots are fired in some lasting attempt to convince himself that you are both still alive. In unexpected telephone calls when he just needs to know that you are there, somewhere, and in the way his handwriting always tilts upwards when he's in a hurry. And that one must come to terms with the idea that there is no such thing as black and white, and that it always comes down to perspective._

Somewhere, lost behind all the thoughts of old relatives and soft hands there is the realization that you are no longer laying on a carpet in the blood of a one-time friend. There is the knowledge that your shoulder is sore and your mouth is dry. And that sometimes, there are people above you, asking you questions you find yourself unable to answer.

But more often then not, there is silence.

Because all these memories of a family that lost you in the haze of a departing plane have come back from wherever you placed them to remind you that if this is end, you will never be more alone than you are right now.

_You are both fumbling through these missteps and locked hallways that usually lead you nowhere. And you often have this sick feeling when the floorboards are not quite where they should be, and there is this moment where you honestly believe you will fall._

So you find yourself reaching out to someone who is already too far away to hear you. A distant figure that you don't recognize anymore, and your eyes strain themselves trying to identify them as someone you might know. And one night you blink, and Alec is above you, his face clean and smiling before he steps back, and sometimes he begins to bleed with accusing eyes and a sharp tongue. Other times, he is black and burning from the explosion that you wish had killed him after all, and there is nothing but lost hope surrounding him before he is gone altogether.

Tossing and turning, short of breath and terrified. And then there are two calming hands wrapped in your own, and a voice that is shaking almost as much as you are. Your eyes refuse to open, and you do not know if you are dreaming or not this time because everything has felt like a nightmare since the Director called. Someone, somewhere is whispering words meant to comfort. So you concentrate on listening to them instead of the unsteady throbbing of your heart.

_So you stay in a not-quite silence for what might have been hours._

_For you are so full of simple things. Of climbing trees and of holding hands, of dusty secrets and New York scars. And there is something to be said for internal strength and pent-up anger. But there is more to be said for letting go and moving on. So very few people are brave enough to believe that maybe they do not know what they are looking for._

You wish now more than ever that you could say something back.

_Callen_

We take her to the hospital before becoming caught in the whirlwind that is betrayal and secret organizations. And while I have lead many secret lives, this man who is now dead has lead only one that stretches across borders and weaves between the lives of hundreds of unsuspecting friends.

Sam was tense, Nate was brooding, Eric was worried, and Hetty was confident that this would be over soon. Vance threatened to take the case away if it wasn't solved quickly. And the neat folder filled with explanations and confessions made me wonder how something so ugly can be filed away into easy, understandable words. As if we can justify why people kill and why people steal with evidence and photographs. As if knowing everything will make us feel any better about what has already happened.

"_What are you going to do when I leave?"_

"_Come after you."_

And I hadn't ever prepared for her to be the one leaving. Caught in the offset illusion that I could keep her safe, when we worked in a world that was anything but. Caught in the promises of clean doctors who refuse to let her slip away, behind glass windows that make everything look so small and lonely.

We lost Dom in the middle of the night to men we left in basements to bleed. And we almost lost Kensi in the comfort of daylight, behind the locked door of a room we could never get to fast enough. And people lie, and people hurt, and people leave without saying goodbye. So I sit next to her as she shivers and cries out for something that is never really there. Pushing her back down and I hear my voice break sometimes because no one should ever have to watch someone hurt this badly.

_So she holds you close on a night when you are not able to make it work by yourself. And she whispers old stories from a fading childhood that does not always feel like her own, and you smile sometimes, falling asleep with deep and even breaths, and she does not move._

I pray for the first time in many, many years. And think that almost anything would be better than this.


	14. Chapter 14

**Much longer chapter than usual, and a faster update! This coming week is not going to be an easy one, but next week is spring break! So while this story seems to be winding down to a close, I'm toying with other ideas for another one that might be posted the day this one wraps up. We'll see.**

**Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to review! I do love you all.**

Disclaimer in Chapter One

She opens her eyes in the black and blue cover of nighttime, the window to her left overlooking the standstill traffic below. The room is cold and the sheets are wrapped around her torso in a way that tells her she did not sleep well. White bandages surround her stomach, visible even in the dim lighting.

And she does not wonder where exactly she is or how exactly she got there. Because the thick breaths of a man already dead and the whispered words of friends that were almost too late never really left her, and it is impossible to forget something you will never finish living through.

Alec was alive before he was lost in the cover of fire and falling bricks.

Callen was dead to himself long before he was actually shot.

She knows that you can die bloated and blue, black and charred, pulsing and so eternally crimson, white and wrinkled. But even now she cannot help but think it is worse to die empty than it is to leave this world any other way. That she would suffer through hundreds of bullets and the coldest suffocating waters as long as she knew that it was not all a waste of time.

But she did not die. Maybe she should have and maybe a part of her will never leave the floor of that street side motel, but her heart is beating and the dull ache of her chest reminds her that she is so completely _here,_that it is impossible for her to imagine being anywhere else.

And the room is cold and the sheets are twisted. Realities that never leave and people who cannot stay. She falls asleep again slowly, reluctantly.

As if she was never there at all.

In her dream, she is sitting on the white carpet of her grandmother's living room. Cousins sit restlessly on either side of her, the parents laughing at the dining room table just outside the door. Blinking, she turns her small head around and finds a glowing Christmas tree looming over them all. It is December, and she is six.

Just two years before her grandmother, who is now sitting comfortably between her two eldest sons, passed away from a cancer of sorts (her father had never actually told her). Various aunts and uncles sat laughing at a joke she hadn't heard. She only recognized a few. The aunt with the camera, and the uncle who always let her ride on his shoulders when he visited. Fleetingly, she wondered what had happened to him.

The girl next to her, with strawberry blonde hair and numerous freckles splayed across her dimpled face, reached over and pulled gently on her pigtail to get her attention.

"Less go!" Struggling to remember the names of all the children around her, she tumbled out the door after them, caught up in a fierce game of hide-and-seek that she remembered taking hours to get through the first time. But wandering into the master bedroom where she remembered seeking refuge, she froze. Because standing next to the open window, in worn out jeans and a green cotton shirt, was a woman she had not seen in a very long time. They looked at each other. The same brown eyes, the same dark hair. Kensi supposed she could have been looking in a mirror.

"Momma?" The words were soft and frightened. Her mother was someone she did not dream about, who did not write or call or visit. Pushed into the corner with everything else she refused to allow to surface to the forefront of her mind. And if she _was_ going to think about her, why was it here? In the middle of a Christmas party with her father's side of the family. The woman before her smiled.

"Kensi." The small girl wondered why everyone seemed to act like they'd been expecting to find her exactly where they did. The urge to stomp her foot and scream arose, but she swallowed it forcefully, and waited. Her mother started to move towards her. "How are you baby girl?"

Kensi winced, but bit back. "Why do you care _now_?" She felt like she was choking, all the words she'd ever wanted to say, but had never had the chance. If this wasn't real, why did it matter whether or not she said what she has always wanted to?

"Why didn't you care before you left? Back when I almost died overseas? When I worked in New York? How is this time any more important than all the others?" Turning her gaze back out to the window, and shifting back to her original spot on the floor, her mother sighed and did not answer.

"There are some things you just don't understand Kensi." She sounded defeated.

"_The _hell _I don't understand."_And very suddenly, she is not six and lonely anymore, but older and bent on getting the answers that have been hidden for so long.

_"Why?"_

_The words burn her throat as they fall out of her open mouth. She watches him closely. There is no guarantee he'll answer, but she feels he owes her at least that much. A year and a half is a long time to lie to someone you care about. And five years is a long time to be dead. He shrugs slowly._

_"There are a lot of different reasons Kenz. And none of them will make you feel any better."_

_She hates it how easily he has fallen back into the routine of friendship. As if nicknames will make shooting her any better. Any more acceptable._

_"Damn it Alec!" She moves closer._

_It has been five long years since he left her drowning in ashes. Five years since she felt his cold hand on her clammy cheek. And she wonders then why she bothered at all._

_"Why now." It does not feel like a question. But rather an acceptance that maybe ending up here, in this room, was never an option. That there is no answer or reason. And looking into his cloudy green eyes, she believes that maybe he has always belonged to a world of hating and killing and living only to lose it all on purpose. So while she wakes up from nightmares, he is trapped in one that will never end._

_And very suddenly, she finds that she does not want to die._

She deflates quickly. Stumbling backwards onto her heels as she realizes that some people will refuse to be forgotten, and that maybe she is only wasting her time trying to figure this out.

"I've been dead for a long time." Her mother is not looking at her anymore, arms folded protectively across her chest, hair covering the rest of her face from view. Kensi sinks to the floor by the bed, too exhausted to stand and listen to the excuses that won't make her feel better anyways. She scoffs.

"You've been dead to me for longer." And it's true. Because when she watched the car door slam and the smoke disappear down their gravel driveway, she let go of the woman who had loved her before she could run down the stairs and beg her not to leave.

Somewhere down the hall, she hears the excited shrieks of her cousins, and the clinking of glasses from the family who left her behind in their hurry to move on from the death of a brother. She does not belong here any more than her mother does. So she squeezes her eyes shut and wishes herself away, and is surprised at the cool hand that touches her arm.

"You know that I could not stay." And Kensi thinks that if the point of this dream is to convince her that she has wasted her time hating this woman all these years, hating the fact that she could not simply drive away and start over, hating that she had to be the one stuck remembering when everyone else had already forgotten, than she would have tried harder to stay awake.

"It doesn't matter anymore." She whispered sadly, and her mother steps back. And there is a line somewhere between them that will always keep them from understanding, will always keep pushing them apart. Each more alone than they'd ever really meant to be.

So the house falls silent around them, the window slides shut softly, and there is the terrifying feeling of free falling that surrounds them right before Kensi opens her eyes with a shuddering gasp.

_He wants to know if you love him. Because he is so close now, and some things do not need to be said to be understood. But you do not believe that love is always a definite thing. Like calendars hanging on a wall or the chess board you never use. It's bigger and broader and so much more lingering than that._

_So he raises his hand softly, brushing the stray curls that always make him smile off your forehead. And you swear that your heart is beating out confessions loud enough for him to hear. But you know that through all the people he's been, he cannot change who he is underneath the false credit cards and meaningless bank statements. Some things mean more than justified killings and good-hearted sacrifices. You wonder exactly how long you've been standing like this._

You aren't as surprised as you thought you might be when you open your eyes and find him sitting patiently next to you. He smiles broadly as you blink sleepily in the early morning light that streams through your window.

"It's about time Kenz." It's a laughing welcome, and you can hear the relief he's trying to push back. But you play along and give him a half-hearted glare in return before fixing him with questioning eyes. "About a week." He answers quickly, because he has had enough experience in hospitals to know what you are curious about.

"How are you?" And it is not your mother's voice this time, filled with undeserved worry, but one that you remember being in the haze that brought you here. You find his hand is resting over your own and smile gently.

"I'm alright." You know it's less than he deserves, and you know from the small frown that he masks by turning away that he will ask again. But the two of you are good at pretending and experts at putting conversations off. You have been waiting for it all to boil over for a very long time.

_You have lied to your family. You have lied to your friends. But you will not lie to yourself. So you admit that you both have founded a relationship based on the pretense that there will be second chances for every time you hang back and do not speak. And you know all too well how much you have to lose, and how terribly easy it is to turn your back and find that it all disappears when you are not looking. Because the worst things happen when you are sitting at home and the telephone rings. When everyone is so very sorry, but there was nothing, is nothing, they could do. You are certain that there was a time before this, but it is lost somewhere in the black ashes of a building that will never stop burning._

So you interlace your fingers with his own and he shifts closer to you and does not leave. And your eyes speak of dust and bones and secret things, and his are of gray soil and passports and a sort-of kind-of family.

_So you spend a lot of time missing, and a lot of time loving, and a lot of time feeling around for something solid enough to stand on._

You take his breath on your cheek as a silent promise that he isn't going anywhere without you.

**By the way, if any of you have any story ideas you'd like to see me write, or just any you think might be fun, feel free to let me know! It'd be greatly appreciated.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Final chapter everyone!  
Thanks a million to everyone who's taken the time to review, and to all my readers. The traffic for this story has been incredible, and I'm so happy you all have enjoyed it. I'm not really planning on a sequel, but if any of you would like to write one, I'd be perfectly fine with that (as long as you let me know beforehand). :)**

**Also, if you have the time, please check out 'of fine lines and broken things' on my profile. It deals with similar themes to 'Already Gone,' but is a much different story (with a plotline the whole way through). If you all like it enough, I'll continue it, I just want a general reaction before I get too far into it.**

**Enjoy!**

Disclaimer in Chapter One:

_She liked first dates, breakfast burritos, and going undercover. He was terrified of commitment, needles, and of not knowing what was about to happen. They spent most of their time making jokes and pretending not to understand the look in the other's eyes._

_He asked her once what she was thinking._

_He always wondered why she lied._

_Sometimes I can sleep through the night and sometimes you remember that I do not expect you to be strong for me all the time. There is a certain sense of completeness that one gets from the knowledge that there is a tomorrow out there waiting. It does not matter who was right. It does not matter if you made your bed that morning. It does not matter whether or not you understand what I am trying to say._

_And when you are done sidestepping everything that I am too tired to avoid anymore:_

_I will find you._

She puts the car in park, but does not cut the engine, and heaves a heavy sigh that makes her chest throb in a dull reminder of where she has come from. The crashing of waves filters through the windows on either side of her.

_So she smiled and held his hand for a small, fleeting tick of the clock and stayed._

It's a homecoming of sorts after all.

_When the gun in her hand felt heavy and strange. When the bullets that flew past her head woke her up in the middle of the night with a throat that was raw and burning._

He knows she's coming, and can feel her approaching long before the rhythm of her footsteps reaches his ears.

_You learn very quickly that there are many different kinds of love._

She stops somewhere behind him, and he turns to face her. And she is bruised and shaking, a little bit worn and a whole lot lost. But he sees the fire in her eyes and the slope of her ready smile and feels something akin to hope tingling through his veins.

_Somewhere along the twisted, uncertain line, you forget about revenge._

The sun is setting behind him and they are breathing and they are certain but they do not move a muscle.

_You do not think it is possible to love someone more than that._

_And there is always something close to helplessness that rests in the pit of your stomach. For these two angry, proud people who have seen too much and loved too much and woken up on so many silent mornings with a bitter taste on their tongue. Eyes that are always open and hands that are always closed and sometimes you think they both wonder how it is that their fragile hearts could possibly still be beating._

_And you think he must have been sixteen and lovely and so very unafraid to die once upon a different time. But there is something about the old records that end up stacked in your corner like discarded memories, and so you keep your mouth shut for fear of reading too far into what has not happened._

Men that die and then die again. Secrets of missions long over, timid scars and white houses with picket fences that will never belong to them. And they can say what they want and act how they want, but that does not change who they are.

They have not-said so many things that she believes that they will spend a lifetime catching up.

"I'm sorry."

It's not an explanation. It's not passionate or strangling or gut wrenching to hear. It's gentle and calm and he can almost feel the memory of her own past lives reaching out to him as if to say that they will both have things they cannot explain. He steps towards her with a smile that shows how relieved he is for her to finally be here again.

She moves to the wooden railing that started it all.

"I asked you once what you would do when I left." Nodding, and raising an eyebrow, Kensi waits patiently for him to find the words that will make this okay again. When he does not say anything, she turns back around to find him much closer than she expected him to be, with eyes that were serious and smiling in a way only he could really manage.

"Yes, you did." He places his hands against the pier on either side of her and she meets his gaze because neither one of them have ever been known to back down.

_And you swear that your heart is beating out confessions loud enough for him to hear_

"As it turns out," he pauses, and she closes her eyes. "I'm not going anywhere."

_His breath is calm and easy; like he's known for a very long time he would end up here with you._

And she thinks she meets him in the middle. And she knows they have problems to resolve and cases worry about and that there is never any guarantee that either one of them will be there forever.

_But she has learned so many things since creeping into a desert trap. That the end of suffering does not justify it ever happening at all. That you are more wrong than you are right. That you will always leave a little bit of yourself in your past._

"I love you Callen." She cuts off whatever reply he could have possibly come up with. "I'm not saying it because I almost died, and I'm not saying it because of what's happening here, now. I'm telling you because I'm tired of pretending that I'll always have another opportunity to let you know how I feel."

_And she grows a little and then love is when his hand is resting on the small of her back before the first shots are fired in some lasting attempt to convince himself that they are both still alive. In unexpected telephone calls when he just needs to know that she is there, somewhere, and in the way his handwriting always tilts upwards when he's in a hurry._

He presses his lips against hers then and she can feel him smiling. Wrapping his arms around her small back and pulling her tightly against his chest, he can't help but laugh for the first time since she turned her back and left them behind so she could face a fate she didn't know she had.

"I know Kenz. I know."

_He showed her how to watch her back, and protected her behind a wall he did not remember constructing. Planning his movements around her smiles and his words were based on what she might say in return._

There is always a comfortable silence.

_He wants to know if you love him. Because he is so close now, and some things to not need to be said to be understood._

And there are some things that do. So he leans back and holds her face lightly in his rough hands.

_And as these things take you places you did not mean to go, and show you people that do not always help, there is this constant pattern of readjusting just how you thought everything would work out._

"I love you too."

_And you do not remember ever being more honest than that._


End file.
